Your rights

ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading

seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.

We can refuse access to some documents or parts of documents that are exempt. Exempt documents may include those relating to deliberative processes, documents containing material obtained in confidence and legally privileged documents or other matters set out in the FOI Act.

Documents available outside the FOI Act

You can get certain information, including personal information we hold about you, without following a formal process under the FOI Act. You should also check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme to see if what you are seeking is already available.

Information Publication Scheme

As required by the FOI Act, we have an Information Publication Scheme entry that provides information on our structure, functions, appointments, operational information, annual reports and details of ACECQA's FOI officer.

FOI disclosure log

ACECQA is required by the FOI Act to publish a disclosure log on its website. The disclosure log lists information which has been released in response to an FOI access request. The disclosure log requirement does not apply to:

personal information about any person if publication of that information would be ‘unreasonable’

information about the business, commercial, financial or professional affairs of any person if publication of that information would be ‘unreasonable’

other information covered by a determination made by the Australian Information Commissioner or the National Education and Care Services FOI Commissioner if publication of that information would be ‘unreasonable’

any information if it is not reasonably practicable to publish the information because of the extent of modifications that would need to be made to delete the information listed in the above dot points.

The information described in this disclosure log has been released by ACECQA under the FOI Act and is available for public access. Access to the information listed in the disclosure log may be obtained by writing to ACECQA:

Fees and charges

There is no application fee for an FOI request.

There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents containing only personal information about you. However, processing charges may apply to other requests. The most common charges are:

Activity

Charge

Search and retrieval: time ACECQA spends searching for or retrieving a document

$15.00 per hour

Decision making: time spent in deciding to grant or refuse a request, including examining documents, consulting with other parties, and making deletions

First five hours: Nil
Subsequent hours: $20 per hour

Transcript: preparing a transcript from a sound recording, shorthand or similar medium

$4.40 per page of transcript

Photocopying

$0.10 per page

Inspection: supervision by an ACECQA officer of inspection of documents or hearing or viewing an audio or visual recording at our premises

$6.25 per half hour (or part thereof)

Delivery: posting or delivering a copy of a document at your request

Cost of postage or delivery

If we decide to impose a charge, we will give you a written submission and the basis of our calculation. Where the estimated charge is between $20 and $100, we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20, or where the estimated charge exceeds $100, we may ask you to pay a 25% deposit before we process your request.

You can ask for the charge to be waived or reduced for any reason, including financial hardship or on the grounds of public interest. If you do so, you should explain your reasons and you may need to provide some evidence.

What you can expect from us

We will tell you within 14 days that we have received your request. We will also give you an estimate of the charges that apply to your request. We will give you our decision within 30 days unless that time has been extended. If a document contains information about a third party, we will need to consult them and may need to extend the time to give you our decision by another 30 days. We may also seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex.

Review of decisions

When we have made a decision about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.

You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed if we:

refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access

impose a charge

refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

A third party who disagrees with our decision to give you documents that contain information about them can also ask for the decision to be reviewed.

Internal review

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another authorised officer in our agency. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

Information Commissioner review

You can ask the Office of the National Education and Care Services Freedom of Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after an affected third party is notified).

The Office of the National Education and Care Services Freedom of Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision, or substitute a new decision. The Office of the National Education and Care Services Freedom of Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. More information is available at the Office of the National Education and Care Services Freedom of Information Commissioner website.